of Rome’s dealings with Christianity (Ecclesiastical History
3.33.3). What is most interesting about Eusebius’ analysis of the
episode is that he uses it to distance Trajan from the incidence of
persecution. The last emperor to order a persecution, in Eusebius’
view, had been Domitian (3.17), but this had come to an end with
that emperor’s assassination and replacement by Nerva. Eusebius
draws an implicit link between the annulling of Domitian’s acts
by the senate and the end of this particular bout of persecution:
one of the acts attributed to Domitian by Eusebius was the exile
of the evangelist John to the island of Patmos (3.18); with the
advent of Nerva, however, that exile came to an end and John
returned to Ephesus (3.20.9). After a short reign Nerva was suc-
ceeded by Trajan. Eusebius notes that persecutions began to occur
again, but emphasizes that they were the result of local, popular
agitation rather than direction by the emperor (3.32.1). This argu-
ment is underscored by Eusebius’ interpretation of Pliny’s and
Trajan’s exchange. After citing Trajan’s ruling that Christians
should not be hunted out but could be punished if encountered,
Eusebius observes that this almostremoved the threat of perse-
cution. That it did not was not the fault of the emperor; again the
fault is said to lie with the populations and magistrates of indi-
vidual cities (3.33.2). It seems as if Eusebius was endeavouring
to distance Trajan from those tyrannical emperors who did per-
secute, yet was finding his thesis confounded by the patent reality
that persecutions and martyrdoms had taken place in Trajan’s
reign (this was, after all, the period of Ignatius of Antioch’s
journey to Rome to meet his death). But why did Eusebius go to
such lengths to distance the emperor from instances of persecu-
tion? The reason is twofold. First, and as we have already seen
several times, Eusebius was at pains throughout the Ecclesiastical
Historyto stress the essential harmony of Christianity’s destiny
with that of Rome. Secondly, Trajan also played an important role
in one of the other central themes of Eusebius’ narrative: by his
extirpation of the Jewish revolt in various parts of the eastern
Mediterranean in 115–17 (Smallwood 1976: 389–427), Trajan
further compounded the calamities suffered by the Jews (4.2).
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